Mac Pro 2008

[Phil Adams]

Hi folks, could you please help me? Today I’ve fetched a 2008 Pro to replace my old 2008 which has display issues, I suspect the graphics card, but it was more cost effective to buy a whole unit just in case I diagnosed wrongly.
I bought the unit from eBay, and if I get stuck I can ask the seller for the answer but not sure he’s tech enough to know the answer, so I thought I’d ask here first.
The issue: the Mac is showing 4 internal hard drive, plus one external drive which is the boot disk.
I can’t find the 5th drive. I’ve pulled the 4 caddy’s whilst shut down and the machine starts and runs. So where should I look to find the 5th drive please?
Many thanks
PS, there nothing showing outside the unit, no boxes, no cables.

 

[Bigwaff]

The issue: the Mac is showing 4 internal hard drive, plus one external drive which is the boot disk.

One of the internal drives is probably split into two partitions so it looks like two drives mounted on the desktop.

 

[arw]

one external drive which is the boot disk.
I can’t find the 5th drive.

Are there PCIe devices installed besides the graphics card?
If the previous owner set up OpenCore, RefindPlus (or a modded firmware ?), the Mac Pro 3,1 can boot from a PCIe (NVMe) SSD.
Something like this:

 

[flowrider]

One of the drives might be mounted in the empty optical drive bay.

Lou

 

[DeltaMac]

Your boot drive might be an SSD on a PCIe card, which will appear as an external drive on your Mac Pro. I expect you will find that "phantom" boot drive in one of your PCIe card slots.
Or, yes, could be in one of the optical drive bays.

 

[Phil Adams]

Thanks very much folks, you’ve given me some pointers to check out. I suspect it’s got a pci card in it.
I shall have a root around and let you know.
Thanks again for your help.

 

[Phil Adams]

I’ve pulled this and the machine can’t find the boot disk so I reckon this must be it, in the pci slot below the graphics card.
Thanks again folks.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, that would be your boot drive.
More info - https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC...05iCHtzhKW5r3uy54obQVMeQrcR79O553dDD3x6QLIB4H

 

[AlexMaximus]

I’ve pulled this and the machine can’t find the boot disk so I reckon this must be it, in the pci slot below the graphics card.
Thanks again folks.

You got super lucky. This PCIe drive used to be expensive and fast. Your MP3,1 should run a bit faster than your old one. OWC used to have great SSD solutions for Mac. With what GPU did the unit come with and what GPU was in your older unit?

 

[Ben J.]

Putting a Sonnet PCIe card with two 2.5" SSDs on it in my 3,1MP was the best thing I did. Gave it new life and made it last a few more years. About a decade of pretty heavy use in total. Still have it. Still works, last time I checked.